NYCEDC's blog

By Andrew O'Shaughnessy and Shahriar Khan, Center for Economic Transformation

On June 26th, Pilot Health Tech NYC culminated in a demo day and celebration at the Alexandria Center for Life Science – NYC. Pilot Day was attended by 200 leaders from the City’s health tech, healthcare and venture communities who were treated to dynamic presentations from this year’s winning teams. The winning teams took home $1,000,000 in funding to validate new technologies through pilots in clinical settings.

In March, over 300 face-to-face lightning meetings took place between startups and healthcare institutions at Matchmaking Days curated by NYCEDC and Health 2.0, the program partner. The partnerships that emerged developed pilot proposals to address pressing health needs. A panel of expert judges including researchers, practitioners, and investors selected the 11 winners. .

The $1 million in Pilot funding will be used to support pilot projects that will engage thousands of patients in New York City over a period of 4-9 months. The pilots will generate the essential early data that can help startups raise investments and secure their first major customers. NYCEDC and Health 2.0 provided networking assistance, educational resources and mentorship throughout the process.

The theme of the night at the Alexandria Center was that healthcare innovation is looming large in the City. Benjamin Branham, NYCEDC’s Chief Strategy Officer recognized the City’s intellectual resources, saying, “New York has the most NIH funding of any city other than Boston—which after all, has to win at something.”

Josh Stein, CEO of 2013 Pilot winner AdhereTech, credited Pilot Health Tech NYC with connecting AdhereTech to “a storied institution,” Weill Cornell Medical College. That relationship, in turn, has led to pilots with Walter Reed Medical Center and Boehringer-Ingelheim, as well as “more business than we can handle.”

Master of ceremonies and Health 2.0 CEO Indu Subaiya echoed Stein’s observations and expressed the importance of Pilot Day and the Pilot Health Tech NYC competition for bringing new and innovative ideas to the market. In fact, last year’s winners have raised over $150 million in private investment since winning the awards.

Pilot Day’s success is only one indicator of a growing, vibrant health tech and life science community in New York. See the official press release and recent press coverage for more information. Additionally, check out NYCEDC’s many programs in support of these industries.

Congratulations to all 2014 winners! Stay tuned as we follow the winning Pilot teams to see how their pilot projects are doing.